11766 IUPAC Gold Book - excitotoxicity 10.1351/goldbook.11766 11766 current 1 Pathological process by which neurons are damaged and killed by the overactivation of receptors for the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, such as the N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor and the 2-amino-3-(3-hydroxy-5-methyl-1,2-oxazol-4-yl)propanoic acid (AMPA) receptor. Excitotoxins like NMDA and kainic acid bind to glutamate receptors, and can cause excitotoxicity by allowing high levels of calcium ions to enter cells, activating enzymes such as phospholipases, endonucleases, and proteases such as calpain, which damage cell structures, including the cytoskeleton, membranes, and DNA. (AMPA) receptor https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11577 N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11869 glutamate https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11792 kainic acid https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11842 neurotransmitter https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11955 PAC, 2015, 87, 841. 'IUPAC Glossary of terms used in neurotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 867 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-0103) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11766/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11766/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11766/plain Citation: 'excitotoxicity' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.11766 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-05-08T07:53:04+00:00